Figuring out calories burned?

chris christanis said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap).
So I
bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to
figure
this out?

My heartrate monitor tells me this, although it's probably just a guess on
its part. However, if I ride hard one day over the same terrain as a
previous day's ride, it'll give me a higher calories burnt for the hard
day.

--
Bob in CT
Remove ".x" to reply

chris christanis said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap).
So I
bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to
figure
this out?

My heartrate monitor tells me this, although it's probably just a guess on
its part. However, if I ride hard one day over the same terrain as a
previous day's ride, it'll give me a higher calories burnt for the hard
day.

--
Bob in CT
Remove ".x" to reply

chris christanis said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap). So I
bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to figure
this out?

Go to www.fitday.com . It's not 100% accurate but then again neither was your bike computer.

Dan.

"BanditManDan" <[email hidden]> wrote in
message news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

chris christanis said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap).
So I
bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to
figure
this out?

Go to 'www.fitday.com' (http://www.fitday.com) . It's not 100%
accurate but then again neither was your bike computer.

Dan.

--
BanditManDan

www.caloriesperhour.com is another good site for this type of information

Quoted message said:

chris christanis said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap). So I
bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to figure
this out?

I have one of those and think it is great. The only other
cyclocomputer I've seen with calorie consumption estimation was in the
$150 range (and *not* cordless IIRC).

In that light, I see them as a *value* not "cheap", but also expect
that feature will show up on more of the better 'puters next year.

Highly accurate too at least as to speed (and therefore distance, avg
speed etc). Recently there was one of those automated radar speed
things down the street off and on for about 9 weeks. Coming down the
hill on my way out to ride I could verify the read out vs the radar
thingie.

FWIW, 13 - 15 miles works out to about 1000 calories at 10.5 - 11.5
MPH average for me.

"chris christanis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap). So

I

Quoted message said:

bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to figure
this out?

I use a software called crosstrainer, it's excellent to diet, train and have
a big picture view at calories intake and expense.

You can download a free trial here:
http://www.download.com/Crosstrainer/3000-2129-10171169.html?tag=lst-0-1

"chris christanis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap). So

I

Quoted message said:

bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to figure
this out?

I've included a Calorie and Watts Calculator in my CycliStats ride log and
training diary software ( http://www.CycliStats.com ).

The calculation is automatic whenever you log a ride (see
http://www.shastasoftware.com/CycliStats/addride.htm for a screen shot).
But if you want to override the program's assumptions, you can open the
Calorie and Watts Calculator and play around with the variables yourself
(see http://www.shastasoftware.com/CycliStats/caloriecalculator.htm ).

--
~_-*
....G/ \G
http://www.CycliStats.com
CycliStats - Software for Cyclists

"chris christanis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap). So

I

Quoted message said:

bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to figure
this out?

You might try this formula

Calorie = (1 + 0.0276 * (Average HR – 100)) * (3.5 + 0.0887 * (Weight – 40))
* Time

Where HR is heart rate in beats per minute, weight is in pounds, and time is
in minutes.

"VBadJuJu" <none@> wrote

Quoted message said:

Highly accurate too at least as to speed (and therefore distance, avg
speed etc). Recently there was one of those automated radar speed
things down the street off and on for about 9 weeks. Coming down the
hill on my way out to ride I could verify the read out vs the radar
thingie.

Bike "computers" are simple wheel revolution counters, they're all as accurate
as the tire size input.

Quoted message said:

FWIW, 13 - 15 miles works out to about 1000 calories at 10.5 - 11.5
MPH average for me.

That sounds off by a factor of 4 or so, it's way too high unless that is up a
very steep hill. You can't accurately measure calories without measuring
watts, and that's a difficult thing to do, the equipment is available to do
that (e.g. Powertap), but it's expensive.

On Wed, 01 Sep 2004 16:56:51 GMT, "chris christanis"
<[email hidden]> wrote (more or less):

Quoted message said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap). So I
bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to figure
this out?

Pretty much, calories burned per kilometre/mile is constant, whether
you're going fast or slow. (Walking a mile burns as many calories as
running a mile.)

If you've kept records of your previous rides, with the distance gone
and the calories your old Bell computer told you, then you can do a
quick calc of how many calories per mile the old computer was
more-or-less using.

Then count the kilometres, and multiply by your chosen cal/mile
number.

The Longer version

One question is, how accurate was your old Bell computer anyway...

With cycling, because you can get up to speeds where air resistance
becomes significant, this isn't entirely true, but it's still close
enough for jazz.

The key factors for bikes I'd say are:
- weight of the rider + bike
- smoothness or lumpiness of the surface.

I've looked at all sorts of sites that discuss calories/hour, and the
range I've seen goes from about 30 calories/mile to 65 calories/mile.
And these take no account of surface. And often faster riding uses
fewer calories/mile, according to these sites.

If anyone wants my spreadsheet that works out calories/mile for riders
of different weights and average speeds (Excel 5 format), just
contact me off-list, and when I return from my holidays I'll email it
to you.

I pretty much use a 38cal/km (60cal/mile) for me as a 200lb guy on a
heavy bike*.

(This actually prompted me to go and weigh my bike for the first time.
I'd sort of reckoned it as 15kg, but it's actually 20kg (45lb) -
before I load anything into the panniers or the bar bag!)

So just use your mileometer, and then multiply by the number you feel
comfortable with.

Figures I've seen on web-sites include:
==============================
Calories burnt/10 mins
Woman Man
Wt (lb) 123 170
5.5mph 36 49
9.4mph 56 74
racing 95 130

And on another:
"Cycling burns about 0.15 to 0.17 calories per minute, per kilogram
(divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to get kilograms) of body weight,
for fast riding. There is wide variation in this formula, but this
gives you a start.

For example, 0.17 calories/minute-kilogram x 60 minutes x 73 kilograms
(160-pound person) equals 742 calories needed for an hour of fast
cycling.

For aerobic riding, the range is lower, around 0.10 to 0.15 calories
per minute, per kilogram of body weight. Very easy recovery riding is
lower yet."

--
Cheers,
Euan
Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122
Smalltalk links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk) http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk

chris christanis said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap). So I
bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to figure
this out?

Lifeform is nice software to track food and exercise.
http://www.fitnesoft.com/

---
"BitwiseBob" - Bob Anderson
Eugene Oregon

"Kevan Smith" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

On Wed, 1 Sep 2004 15:26:20 -0700, "GaryG"
<garyg@shasta_SPAMBEGONE_software.com> from Posted via Supernews,

urlhttp://www.supernews.com/url said:

"chris christanis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap).

So

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I

Quoted message said:

bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to

figure

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

this out?

I've included a Calorie and Watts Calculator in my CycliStats ride log

and

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

training diary software ( http://www.CycliStats.com ).

This is really obvious, but any calorie calculation uses depends on what

you

Quoted message said:

think the calorie burn rate is. The burn rate is also logarithmic; that

is,

Quoted message said:

the faster you go, the number of calories burned per unit of time

increases on

Quoted message said:

a logarithmic curve. Therefore, finding an accurate base is important.

There

Quoted message said:

are also other factors to consider, such as elevation gain, wind, bike
position, weight, etc, which also go into the base.

The Calorie and Watts Calculator built into CycliStats takes into account a
bunch of variables, including: rider weight, bicycle weight, distance,
speed, elevation gain, average headwind, rider position on the bike, rolling
resistance factor, and air temperature. Average headwind and rider position
are the two most significant variables (after rider weight and speed which
are known quantities). The underlying calculation (from a sports physiology
Master's thesis...not mine) first calculates Average Watts. It then
converts that into Calories burned (and also displays calories per mile/km,
per minute, per hour, and equivalent fat pounds/kg burned).

The calculation can be completely automatic, or the user can override some
of the assumed variables. For instance, rider position on the bike is
assumed to be more "aero" as you ride faster, but you can override this
assumption for each ride.

Is it an "accurate" number? Well, outside of a sports lab, everything is
just an estimate. But, I've compared the numbers for Watts and Calories
from CycliStats with many others that I've seen, and I'm pretty confident
that they are reasonable for most rides. As a test, I recently plugged in
Lance Armstrong's numbers for his Alp d'Huez time trial and came very close
to what I've heard reported as his average wattage output on that climb
(around 450 watts!).

Quoted message said:

All in all, I consider it impossible to get an accurtate measurement

outside

Quoted message said:

lab conditions. That's why I ignore all that stuff. A ballpark figure is

good

Quoted message said:

enough for me, and the really important thing, anyway, is to use the same
method each time.

Agreed...it's all just an estimate. For most folks, 40 calories per mile
would probably be a reasonable number to use (a little more if you're heavy,
and a little less if you're light).

Quoted message said:

Here's a good free site to do it:

http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/jumpsite/calculat.htm

By tracking results over time, you can get a general idea of how much you

need

Quoted message said:

to ride to lose or maintain weight. Of course, you also have to keep track

of

Quoted message said:

how many calories you eat, and that's another kettle of fish.

CycliStats tracks calories burned for each ride, and shows summaries for
each week, month, and year (or any other time frame you choose), along with
a whole bunch of other stats. You can download a free, fully functional
30-day trial version from the website ( http://www.CycliStats.com ).

--
~_-*
....G/ \G
http://www.CycliStats.com
CycliStats - Software for Cyclists

Quoted message said:

--
Kevan Smith
[email hidden]

Peter Cole said:

"VBadJuJu" <none@> wrote

Quoted message said:

Highly accurate too at least as to speed (and therefore distance, avg
speed etc). Recently there was one of those automated radar speed
things down the street off and on for about 9 weeks. Coming down the
hill on my way out to ride I could verify the read out vs the radar
thingie.

Bike "computers" are simple wheel revolution counters, they're all as
accurate
as the tire size input.

Quoted message said:

FWIW, 13 - 15 miles works out to about 1000 calories at 10.5 - 11.5
MPH average for me.

That sounds off by a factor of 4 or so, it's way too high unless that is
up a
very steep hill. You can't accurately measure calories without measuring
watts, and that's a difficult thing to do, the equipment is available to
do
that (e.g. Powertap), but it's expensive.

HR monitors should be better in this regard, as at least they take into
account how hard you're working (and know data like your weight, sex, age,
etc.). Power monitoring would be great, too.

--
Bob in CT
Remove ".x" to reply

"chris christanis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap). So I
bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to figure
this out?

This is a very tricky question.

Having investigated this in the past, I know there is no agreed,
accurate method of determining the calories used.

A few observations, though.

1) Any method that does not take account of the speed at which you are
cycling is pure rubbish.
2) Unless you are cycling on the flat at a steady speed, any method
that does not take account of the total moved mass is pure rubbish.
3) Conversly, any method which ties the calories burned to the moved
mass without taking account of the altitude gained/lost and the amount
of acceleration/decelerations is pretty much rubbish.
4) Any method that does not take account of the wind speed is likely
to be wildly inaccurate if the w/s is over about 5 mph (consider that
if you are cycling with a groundspeed of 15mph, your airspeed will
vary from 10 to 20 mph tail/head wind at this w/s. At 12 mph, the
difference would be 3 to 27 mph)

5) Within a fairly wide range, you can probably find a figure or
algrorithm that will give you any result you want, if you research
enough sites/books/articles.

The method I used to *ESTIMATE* the calorie burn was as follows.

a) Find a step aerobics machine which has a calories burned* readout.
b) Use an HRM and set the machine to various resistances. For each
resistance setting, wait until your heart rate stablises, and note the
Hr/Calories readings.
c) Plot a graph of these figures
d) Use an HRM that will give you a mean Hr for your ride, and use that
against your graph to determine your approximate calorie burn.

* Try and determine if the calorie readout is the number of calories
calculated from the kg/m raised on the machine, or whether the machine
introduces a "fudge factor" to account for the inefficiency of human
power generation/delivery. If it is the former, it will be a
considerable underestimate of the calories burned. All the heat you
produce is on top of the energy used to effectively raise your body
mass the distance used in the calculation.

If you can do the maths, you can use the Hr/Cal figures to produce an
equation, but as the relationship is non linear, it's not that easy 🙁

Apart from the above, I would say that the algorithm given based on
mean Hr and weight has the best chance of being accurate, although
both this, and the moethod I outline above will not be too good if
there is a large variation in Hr during your ride.

On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 11:51:18 GMT, "Peter Cole"
<[email hidden]> wrote (more or less):

Quoted message said:

"VBadJuJu" <none@> wrote

Quoted message said:

Highly accurate too at least as to speed (and therefore distance, avg
speed etc). Recently there was one of those automated radar speed
things down the street off and on for about 9 weeks. Coming down the
hill on my way out to ride I could verify the read out vs the radar
thingie.

Bike "computers" are simple wheel revolution counters, they're all as accurate
as the tire size input.

Quoted message said:

FWIW, 13 - 15 miles works out to about 1000 calories at 10.5 - 11.5
MPH average for me.

That sounds off by a factor of 4 or so, it's way too high unless that is up a
very steep hill. You can't accurately measure calories without measuring
watts,

The Analytical Cycling website has a Wattage calculator - nased on
frontal area, weight, surface cycled on, speed, etc.

Quoted message said:

and that's a difficult thing to do, the equipment is available to do
that (e.g. Powertap), but it's expensive.

--
Cheers,
Euan
Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122
Smalltalk links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk) http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk

On 2 Sep 2004 07:11:51 -0700, [email hidden] (Doug Evans) wrote
(more or less):

Quoted message said:

"chris christanis" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap). So I
bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to figure
this out?

This is a very tricky question.

Having investigated this in the past, I know there is no agreed,
accurate method of determining the calories used.

A few observations, though.

1) Any method that does not take account of the speed at which you are
cycling is pure rubbish.

Why is that? The rolling resistance increases linearly with speed,and
the wind resistance only starts becoming significant at 15mph, and
only increases with a power law for a cyclist/bike of /constant/ shape
and frontal area. Most cyclists I know start to crouch and tuck more
as the speeds get up to aero-sensitive speeds.

Quoted message said:

2) Unless you are cycling on the flat at a steady speed, any method
that does not take account of the total moved mass is pure rubbish.

And even if you are on the flat.

Quoted message said:

3) Conversly, any method which ties the calories burned to the moved
mass without taking account of the altitude gained/lost and the amount
of acceleration/decelerations is pretty much rubbish.

Particularly true of the latter point. But as for altitude gains, for
most routes, and certainly for all circular routes, altitude gains
will be balanced by altitude drops. i.e. the distances you put in more
effort because you are climbing should be balanced by the distances
you can use less effort thanks to the downslope.

(And yes, I admit that this assumes that you're a constant-speed
rider...)

Quoted message said:

4) Any method that does not take account of the wind speed is likely
to be wildly inaccurate if the w/s is over about 5 mph (consider that
if you are cycling with a groundspeed of 15mph, your airspeed will
vary from 10 to 20 mph tail/head wind at this w/s. At 12 mph, the
difference would be 3 to 27 mph)

Quoted message said:

5) Within a fairly wide range, you can probably find a figure or
algrorithm that will give you any result you want, if you research
enough sites/books/articles.

The method I used to *ESTIMATE* the calorie burn was as follows.

a) Find a step aerobics machine which has a calories burned* readout.
b) Use an HRM and set the machine to various resistances. For each
resistance setting, wait until your heart rate stablises, and note the
Hr/Calories readings.
c) Plot a graph of these figures
d) Use an HRM that will give you a mean Hr for your ride, and use that
against your graph to determine your approximate calorie burn.

* Try and determine if the calorie readout is the number of calories
calculated from the kg/m raised on the machine, or whether the machine
introduces a "fudge factor" to account for the inefficiency of human
power generation/delivery. If it is the former, it will be a
considerable underestimate of the calories burned. All the heat you
produce is on top of the energy used to effectively raise your body
mass the distance used in the calculation.

If you can do the maths, you can use the Hr/Cal figures to produce an
equation, but as the relationship is non linear, it's not that easy 🙁

Apart from the above, I would say that the algorithm given based on
mean Hr and weight has the best chance of being accurate, although
both this, and the moethod I outline above will not be too good if
there is a large variation in Hr during your ride.

Plus if you're training for aerobic fitness, your HR for given effort
is going to vary over time.

--
Cheers,
Euan
Gawnsoft: http://www.gawnsoft.co.sr
Symbian/Epoc wiki: http://html.dnsalias.net:1122
Smalltalk links (harvested from comp.lang.smalltalk) http://html.dnsalias.net/gawnsoft/smalltalk

So my question is "why bother?"

Really, what do you do with this number once you have it? Do you
calculate this so that you can justify an extra Twinkie?

I think information is a good thing. But I also think that endless
amounts of data are a waste of time.

Having a good fix on caloric consumption may be useful at high levels
of competiton for such long distance events as TDF, the Giro, etc. But
what use is it to the recreational rider? Are you really going to
count your calories in vs. out?
I think it's a bit silly. If you have a scale you can easily monitor
1) short term wt loss (from a ride) which is a measure of dehydration
and 2) long term weight change trends which is actual weight loss or
gain. Calculating it on the ride seems to be an effort to have a
number and little more.

Peter Cole said:

"VBadJuJu" <none@> wrote

Quoted message said:

Highly accurate too at least as to speed (and therefore distance, avg
speed etc). Recently there was one of those automated radar speed
things down the street off and on for about 9 weeks. Coming down the
hill on my way out to ride I could verify the read out vs the radar
thingie.

Bike "computers" are simple wheel revolution counters, they're all as accurate
as the tire size input.

No, not "all" of them, which is why I mentioned the accuracy.

Counting revs alone will only get you the distance covered. You need
the capability to track the time between revs with a degree of
accuracy and granularity.

I've had more than one very cheapie that had serious trouble tracking
that time and therefore the speed readout was inconsistant. On one I
suspect the average speed was ok, but the sporadic flashes of 141 MPH
left me with little overall confidence. Another only seemed to be
accurate as to time factors when the battery was brand new: otherwise
after a 2++ hour excursion, the 'ride time' would report as 38 mins.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

FWIW, 13 - 15 miles works out to about 1000 calories at 10.5 - 11.5
MPH average for me.

That sounds off by a factor of 4 or so, it's way too high unless that is up a
very steep hill. You can't accurately measure calories without measuring
watts, and that's a difficult thing to do, the equipment is available to do
that (e.g. Powertap), but it's expensive.

Apparently it is pretty accurate, more so than you imagine.

It is quite in line with several online fitness calculator/estimates:
1000 vs 997 vs 1060 vs 1297 vs 937 vs 1301. (I forget the exact
weight factor I have input on the 'puter, so the max variance of 300
doesnt bother me; the average variance is only 144.)

One key element would be the type of bike/tire. Obviously fewer
calories are burned on a road bike at 11 MPH than a mountain bike.
Using the same factors, the online calculators result in only 600 -
900 calories for generic bicycling - still about double your estimate.

Given that the calculator is so in keeping with the other estiamtions,
I suspect the computer infers the bike/tire type from the wheel factor
input.

YMMV

"VBadJuJu" <none@> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

chris christanis said:

I had a cheap Bell computer that did it for me but it fell off (cheap).

So I

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

bought a cateye but it does not tell you calories burned. Anyway to

figure

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

this out?

I have one of those and think it is great. The only other
cyclocomputer I've seen with calorie consumption estimation was in the
$150 range (and *not* cordless IIRC).

In that light, I see them as a *value* not "cheap", but also expect
that feature will show up on more of the better 'puters next year.

Highly accurate too at least as to speed (and therefore distance, avg
speed etc). Recently there was one of those automated radar speed
things down the street off and on for about 9 weeks. Coming down the
hill on my way out to ride I could verify the read out vs the radar
thingie.

FWIW, 13 - 15 miles works out to about 1000 calories at 10.5 - 11.5
MPH average for me.

No way would you burn 1000 calories going that slow, for that short a time,
unless the rider is very large. Where did you get that estimate? 1000
calories in 14 miles works out to over 71 calories per mile, which is very
high (especially at that speed).

Per my CycliStats program's Calorie & Watts Calculator, assuming "Rolling"
terrain (422 feet of elevation gain), and a standard road bike configuration
(18.5 lb bike, with the rider mostly on the hoods), a 150 lb rider would
burn 405 calories, while a 200 lb rider would burn 488 calories.

Assuming the ride was done on a mountain bike (24.5 lb bike, with knobby
tires and a more upright rider position), the 150 lb rider would burn around
573 calories, and the 200 lb rider would burn 697 calories.

By way of comparison, 14 miles at 11 mph would take 1 hr and 16 minutes. Per
www.caloriesperhour.com a 150 lb rider would burn 517 calories in that time.
A 200 lb rider would burn 689 calories.

~_-*
....G/ \G
http://www.CycliStats.com
CycliStats - Software for Cyclists